PROPAGANDA IN THE BALKANS.
At the end of September last those whom we in Macedonia had come to regard as our deadly enemies became our would-be friends with a suddenness which was almost painful. Kultur is a leavening influence, and our spurious local Hun in Bulgaria is every bit as frightful in war and as oily in defeat as the genuine article on the Rhine.
To escape this unfamiliar and rather overpowering atmosphere of friendliness our section of the Salonica Force immediately made for the nearest available enemy and found ourselves at a lonely spot on the Turkish frontier. The name of the O.C. Local Bulgars began with Boris, and he was a Candidat Offizier or Cadet, and acting Town Major. As an earnest of good-will, he showed us photos of his home, before and after the most recent pogrom, and of his grandfather, a bandit with a flourishing practice in the Philippopolis district, much respected locally.
We took up our dispositions, and shortly all officers were engaged sorting out the suspicious characters arrested by the sentries. It was in this way that I became acquainted with Serge Gotastitch the Serb.
When he was brought before me I sent for Aristides Papazaphiropoulos, our interpreter, and in the meantime delivered a short lecture to the Sergeant-Major, Quartermaster-Sergeant and Storeman on the inferiority of the Balkan peoples, with particular reference to the specimen before us, to whom, in view of the fact that he seemed a little below himself, I gave a tot of rum. He eyed it with suspicion.
"What's this?" he asked suddenly (in English). "Whisky?"
I informed him that it was rum.
"That's the goods," he said, and drank it. I then commenced interrogation.
"You are a Bulgar?" I asked.
"No," said Serge cheerlessly, "I am Serb."
"Serb! Then what are you doing here?"
"I hail from Prilep," he explained. "When Bulgar come Prilep, they say, 'You not Serb; you Bulgar.' So they bringit me here with others, and I workit on railroad. My family I not know where they are; no clothes getting, no money neither. English plenty money," he added, à propos of nothing.
I ignored the hint.
"Then you are a prisoner of war?" I suggested.
"In old time," he continued, "Turks have Prilep. I go to America and workit on railroad Chicago—three, four year. When I come back Turks take me for army. Not liking I desert to Serbish army. When war finish, Serbs have Prilep. I go home Serbish civil. Then this war start. Bulgar come to Prilep and say, 'You Bulgar, you come work for us.' You understahn me, boss?"
"I must look into this," I said to the Sergeant-Major. "Send for the interpreter and ask the Bulgar officer to step in. He's just going past."
Boris arrived with a salute and a charming smile and listened to my tale. Then he turned a cold eye on Serge and burst into a torrent of Bulgarian, under which Serge stood with lifting scalp.
"Sir," faltered Serge, when the cascade ceased, "I am liar. All I said to you is false. I am good Bulgar. I hate Serbs."
"Then you are not, in fact, a Serb?" I said.
"Nope," said Serge, nodding his head frantically (the Oriental method of negation).
"Do you want to go home?" I asked cunningly.
"Sure, boss," replied he. "Want to go Chicago."
Boris uttered one blasting guttural and Serge receded to the horizon with great rapidity. "You understand, mon ami," explained Boris; "he is really a Bulgar, but the villainous Serb propagandists have taught him the Serbian language and that he is Serb. It is his duty really to fight or work for Bulgaria, just as it was ours to liberate him and his other Bulgar brothers in Serbia from the yoke of the Serbs. It is understood, my friend?"
"Oh, absolutely," I replied.
He withdrew, exchanging a glance of hatred with Aristides Papazaphiropoulos, who approached saluting with Hellenic fervour.
"You wish me, Sare?" he asked.
"I did," I answered, and outlined to him what had passed. "Is it true that propaganda is, or are, used to that extent?"
"It is true," he answered sadly. "The Serb has much propagandism, the Bulgar also. But in this case both are liars, since the population of Prilep is rightfully Greek."
Three days later Boris appeared before me with a sullen face.
"I wish to complain," he said. "You have with you a Greek, one Papazaphiropoulos. It is forbidden by the terms of the Armistice that Greeks should come into Bulgaria. Greeks or Serbs—it is expressly stated. I wish to complain."
"You are wrong," I replied. "He is no Greek. He is a Bulgar. But the cunning Greek propagandists have taught him the Greek language and that he is a Greek. It is really his duty to be the first to rush on to the soil of his beloved Bulgaria—"
"Ach!" said Boris, grinding his teeth; "you mock our patriotism. You are an Englishman."
"I don't," I replied. "And I'm not. I'm French. We came over in 1066. You ask my aunt at Tunbridge Wells. But the villainous English propagandists taught me English, and the Scotch gave me a taste for whisky, and—"
But Boris had faded away.